The Horsehead Nebula |
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| Pictures of the Horsehead Nebula are among the
standards of astronomy textbooks. This object is so
familiar-looking and relatively easy to point a telescope to: it
is near the southeastern most of the three stars of Orion (the
"leftmost" star of Orion's belt from the perspective of a
Northern Hemisphere-based observer). Unfortunately, it is one of
the toughest to spot visually, as it needs very dark skies and
very large telescopes to see. Photographically though, it is a
beauty. |
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| Constellation: Orion | ||
| When Visible: December - April | ||
| Distance: 1,500 Light-years | ||
| Date: December 2011 - January 2012 | ||
| Location: Rancho Hidalgo, Animas, NM | ||
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Exposure Details: H-alpha: 11 x 30 Minutes Binned 1x1 L: 24 x 5 Minutes Binned 1 x 1 Red: 18 x 5 Minutes Binned 1x1 Green: 18 x 5 Minutes Binned 1x1 Blue: 18 x 5 Minutes Binned 1x1 12 Hours Total Exposure Time |
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| Equipment Used: Takahashi TOA-130F on an Astro-Physics AP1200GTO mount. SBIG STL-6303E camera with FW8-STL filter wheel and Astrodon LRGB and narrowband filters. Robofocus focuser and Astrodon Takometer rotator. | ||
| Acquisition Software : MaximDL 5, TheSky6, CCDAutopilot 4, FocusMax, Takometer Controller | ||
| Processing Software: MaximDL, Photoshop CS, Carboni Actions, IrFanView, AviStack | ||
| A previous version of this area can be seen here. 4 x 30 Minutes of H-alpha mapped to Red, 2 x 30 Minutes of SII mapped to Green and 12 x 5 Minutes of Blue, all binned 1x1. Takahashi FS-102 at f/6 with a Takahashi reducer on a Takahashi EM200 Temma-PC mount. SBIG STL-6303 camera with 5-position filter wheel and Astrodon narrowband filters. Externally guided with an SBIG Remote Guide Head on a Borg 76ED refractor. |
